While 76% of respondents to Deloitte Consulting’s
2004 Consumer Driven Health Care survey asserted that
that the plans do – in fact – prompt employees to make
more cost-efficient health-care purchases, 52% said the
plans can have complex and confusing designs. Results
were close about whether the plans actually mostly
benefit healthy workers with 42% saying they did not and
36% asserting they did.

Seven of 10 employers said only a portion of their
workforce give the consumer plans a thumbs up.
Among employees and their dependents 60% were satisfied
with the plan while about a third were neutral and 8% were
“mildly” dissatisfied.

Meanwhile, more than 80% of both senior management
and HR officials were reported to be satisfied with the
plans. Middle management was closer to the average of
employees with 63% satisfied; a third neutral and 4%
dissatisfied.

Employers’ responses about whether the consumer-based
plans actually work – by saving companies money through
less costly employee health-care buying patterns – were far
from unanimous.
Just under half (47%) reported seeing immediate cost
savings while 52% either didn’t find such efficiencies or
were neutral on the issue, according to Deloitte.

However 46% of employers felt the plans would
reduce health-care cost trends over the long term while
27% asserted they would not do so.

Having a plan in place seem to bring more employees
into the CDHP fold. Of those who are in the second year
of offering a consumer-oriented plan, eight in 10 saw an
increase in enrollment. The rest reported enrollment
about the same as in 2003 and no one experienced a
decline in enrollment.

The survey covered 314 employers including 19% who
offered a consumer-driven health plan.